Team Sky is a British professional road bicycle racing team that competes in international road bicycle races. The creation of the team was announced on 26 February 2009 and the team began competition in January 2010.
The team is managed by British Cycling performance director David Brailsford. Team Sky aims to “create the first British winner of the Tour de France, within five years”.
Goals
Top 10 Le Tour de France Top 10 Vuelta a España Top 3 World Championships Top 3 World ITT Championships Win Paris - Roubaix Win Tour de Romandie
Let’s start with the easy ones, Top 10 at Le Tour should be easily achievable, and we think that Wiggins can fight for a podium place, and become the first Brit to do so. His main helper for this task will be Micheal Rogers. Top 10 at Vuelta is another goal and is achievable, we don’t know who will be our leader, Wiggins will use the race for preparation and will only peak at the end, Uran will be in great form for all of Vuelta., but his time-trial skills limit his slightly.
Now are the next Top 3, and both at the World Championships, the first one is going to be the hardest one, the competition is very high, but with bit of luck Thomas will be able to achieve it. Second goal is quite easy, and I think team Great Britain should be thinking about victory. It’s one of Wiggins target so he will be in top form for the race. Though we can’t exclude Thomas whose form will be majestic, we hope.
Next we come to the win category, and what we think are the hardest goals for us, except Worlds, Flecha is one the the favourites to win this year's Paris-Roubaix, and we think he can win it, but anything can happen at the trecherous cobblestones, the competition will be immense, with right timed attack even outsider can win it. Second goal is quite diffrent if you look at it first, only six days, many top riders will be missing, but it’s gonna be some task nonetheless to win this race with Lofkvist.
Key Races
Le Tour de France Liege - Bastogne - Liege Tour of Britain Paris – Roubaix
No surprises there, most important races for us are here, we want to achieve in them as good as possible, we will try to win at least three of them, we will see what we can do.
Manager Key Races
Milan - San Remo Ronde van Vlaanderen La Fléche Wallonne Vattenfall CyClassics Eneco Tour Giro'd Italia
I felt our sponsors missed some important races on the list that should be counted as key ones, every race is an important races for us, but those including the above ones, are the ones we want to achieve more than expected. Giro’d Italia is as important GT as the other two, and we want to perform well to show we have a strong team at every GT, not one, or two, all of them. Out of these races we want to win at least three of them.
Team
Ultimate leader in our team. His focus is on the Le Tour. It's the most important race he will race in 2011 except World ITT Championships in Denmark. He will try to prove to our sponsors he can do much better than Top10 and he is focused to get Top5. Controversially he will skip British ITT, as there will be other GT he will ride in at the same time - Vuelta a Espana. It will be his preparation race for his second goal this season - Win the World ITT Championship.
Our main men for the cobble races in March and April. He will try to win Paris-Roubaix and get good result in Ronde Von Vlaanderen and Gent-Wevegelem.
He will also be most important lead-out rider in the Tour de France for E.B.Hagen and will try to get the victory on the 4th stage of this year Tur de France.
At 23 this young norwegian rider is already one of our leaders and biggest talent in our team. He is a great all-rounder, for all terrains and weather and we hope he can show that this season. He's main goal is to get as many wins in tour de France as possible, and win the Point's Jersey.
Milan-San Remo will be also one of the most important classics he wil race this season, and will try to get Top 10 or better. He will try to win Vattenfall CyClassics and Eneco tour which suit him abilities perfectly.
Gerrans is our leader for the Fleche Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Amstel Gold Race. He will aim to achieve Top10 in all of them. He will also ride the Tour de France and target at least one stage win.
He will ride other hilly classics like Classica San Sebastian and will ride one-week races such as Paris-Nice with many hilly stages, that do not contain too many mountain top finishes
Thomas will be our undisputed leader at Giro this year, he wil try to achieve Top 10 in General Classification, he will be also Gerrans lieutenant for the Ardeens classics, and will try to get Top 15 in all of them.
As one of our goals is to win Tour the Romandie, we trust that Thomas will try to do his best for his preparation towards Giro. He will also lead us in multi-stage races with mix of hills, time trial and medium climbing, like Paris-Nice
Uran joined Sky for the 2011 season from Caisse d'Epargne. We are delighted to have him, and we hope he can develop into one of the best riders in the world. His strong point lies in the mountains and hills. This year he will be aiming to get good result at the Ardennes classics in April, along Gerrans and Lofvkvist, and possibly a win at Giro di Lombardia.
He will also try to achieve good overall place at Vuelta a Espana. Sky is not yet decided who will be our captain, but Uran has good chances.
Another new signing this time from HTC, we are pleased to have such an experienced rider at our side. He has two main goals for this season, one of them winning Tour of California and repeating his success from last year. Other one more challenging, is to help Wiggins at the mountain stages, at all cost, he will not fight for the overall, but the best placement of his team-mate Wiggins.
He will also lead us at short stages, consisting of mountain stages, time trial, and considerable less amount of hills
German Road Champion joined us after the Pegasus failure of getting UCI licence. He will be our leader in one-week long races, his goal is to win Bayern-Rundfahrt, he will also be in top form in Paris-Nice, and will try to be in top 10. He won't ride any GT's this year, but Sky decision is not final.
Henderson is our best sprinter in the team. His speed at the last 150m will help us win many stages. He will be our leading sprinter at the Giro and will probably help Swift at the Vuelta. He is slowly coming to the end of his carrer and we hope he will end his carrer with us at Sky getting good results, and beating guys,like Cavendish in sprints.
Arvesen is one of our most experienced riders. He will be mainly help Flecha at the cobble classics, and Ardennes classics for Gerrans. He will take part in our lead-out due to his great flat flat stat. He will have his opportunities in smaller races, and will be great help for Hagen to win National Championships in June.
As his career will soon end, we are hopeful he will stay at Sky and train our talented youth.
Geraint is another talent in our team. He is a good all-rounder, especially strong at time-trials. He will take part in our train at tour de France and he will be Boasson Hagen lead-out sprinter. His goals are quite hard for a young rider, but we believe he can achieve all of them.
In absence of Bradley Wiggins, he will be our captain at the British ITT, and our leader at the Tour of Britain. His hardest goal is to achieve Top3 at the World Championships in Denmark, very tough goal for Geraint but his team will be behind him, and we hope he can achieve it
Edited by Alakagom on 22-01-2011 14:35
Good luck with your story. Sky 2011 have quite a good team in one week races with new riders like Rogers, Uran and Knees.
Looking forward for the first reports.
Australian ITT Championship
Buninyong – Buninyong
43 km
Favourites: Porte, Rogers, Meyer, Bobridge, Evans
As Roturn rightly said, its the fitness that wil lbe deciding factor in the first time-trial of the year.
First notable time was set by young Aussie, Jack Bobridge, he is leading with a time of 56'10".
Some minutes later, Jack time was beat by his new teammate Heinrich Haussler, beating Bobridge by 6 seconds.
Our new signing, Micheal Rogers, is a time-trial specialist, but his fitness wasn't the best, only 28 points, left him wondering 8 seconds behind porvisional leader, Haussler, on the third place.
One of the biggest suprises of the year, this Aussie, in his first year as a pro already showed what he can do, and he showed it again in this time-trial smashing the leading time by 45' seconds and leading with olny one rider to go.
Cadel Evans, the last man on the field, and the only one that can stop Porte winning this race, he couldn't quite handle the pressure and finished respectively third overall with a time of 56'08" to Saxobank rider.
Results
1. Richie Porte Saxobank Sunguard 55'19"
2. Heinrich Haussler Garmin-Cervélo +45"
3. Cadel Evans BMC Racing Team +49"
4. Jack Bobridge Garmin-Cervélo +51"
5. Micheal Rogers Sky ProCycling +53"
....
20. Simon Gerrans Sky ProCycling +2'17"
27. Christopher Sutton Sky ProCycling +2'32"
30. Matthew Hayman Sky ProCycling +2'39"
Overall I am quite pleased, all of Sky riders finished in Top30, Gerrans showed that his fitness at the start is quite good, and he will challenge to take Aussie Road Title. Rogers 5th can be seen as dissapointing place, but with his fitness, I am quite pleased, but Porte declassed everybody, and I think he might be more dangreous rider than Evans for the Aussie title.
Edited by Alakagom on 23-01-2011 18:32
Aussie Road Championship coming later. Sorry for not many updates, I have a have a quite big English assignment on Wednesday, so didn't have much time playing. After Wednesday expect many updates Edited by Alakagom on 23-01-2011 10:50
Good luck 
